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WHAT IS THE MATTER 1 



POLITICAL ADDRESS 



AS 



DELIVERED IN MASONIC HALL, 



OCTOBER »8tl*, 1838. 



BY FRANCES WRIGHT D A R IT S *U> N T 



NEW YORK : w 

PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR. 
J^ 1838. 






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WHAT IS THE MATTER ? 

[As delivered in Masonic Hall, New York, on Sunday evening, Oc- 
tober 23th, 183S, and being intended as an olive branch of peace to all 
honest American citizens, under whatever standard of party ranged, at 
an important crisis in the history of their common country.] 

What is the matter 7 — I feel entitled, Fellow-citi- 
zens ! to ask this question for my own satisfaction, and 
called upon to ask it for yours ; deafened as we have 
both been by noise and clamor which were none of our 
seeking; and for myself, threatened in life and limb, 
and all but squeezed to death, while peaceably, tho* 
arduously, following out the mission of a Public 
Teacher. A mission long familiarly understood by 
the American people ; and now, as I am fully satisfied, 
generally consecrated in their respect, confidence and 
affection. What is the matter ? A woman, and she 
by no means a new character — steps forth to address 
her fellow-beings and fellow-citizens — not for the first, 
but for the thousandth time, in a city whose very walls 
are familiar with her name ; and in a country, whose 
very air is impregnated with the principles of which 
she has ever been, and is the faithful and consistent 
expounder. Can this be the matter ? Can this be the 
exciting cause of all the clamor and the outcry which 
fomented by faction, caught up by rumor, and blazed 
forth by an incendiary press — has astonished and dis- 
turbed the city ? No. 

" What then is the matter ?" Before I attempt to 
answer this question radically, on the large scale — 



i 



v 



4 WHAT IS THE MATTER I 

with reference to great general political causes and 
events — let me speak to the smaller and more imme- 
diate circumstances which have surrounded us in this 
building ; and let me state how 1, most unconsciously, 
unsuspectingly and altogether undesignedly, came to 
station myself in the hornet's nest of the great Whig 
Head Quarters, mistaking it for an altogether neutral 
and peaceable, if not friendly, region. I am called to 
explain these circumstances on the present occasion, 
because this is the last time that I shall address the 
Public in this Hall ; and because my occupancy of it 
has been made the pretext for deafening the city and 
myself with the hubbub which has been gathering 
weekly, louder and louder for a month past. 

My engagement with the lessee of this building is 
now closed. I have adhered pertinaciously to the 
precise limit of that engagement, in occupying a build- 
ing rented to me without one objection being made at the 
time of my own personal application for its use. This 
application was made on my part in perfect singleness of 
heart ; without one motive calculated to give rational 
cause of offense to any one. These motives I shall, with 
my usual frankness, explain ; in the view of removing 
all those trifling, but perhaps irritating misconceptions 
which, as I have been informed at least by a gentleman 
intimately associated in his private relations with in- 
fluential members of the Whig Party — if they did not 
exactly inspire, were employed by a few misguided in- 
dividuals as a means to excite and foment, that opposi- 
tion, carried out to brutal violence, with which myseli 
and the Public have been assailed within these walls. 

Let me observe then, that I applied for the use of 
this Hall without any reference to its being the Whig 



WHAT IS THE MATTER? 5 

Head Quarters ; and simply in the natural course of 
things ; as a short statement of facts in connexion with 
my different occupancies of this building will render 
evident. 

It was in this Hall that I first addressed the Public 
of this city, in the winter of 1828, and raised the stan- 
dard of American sovereign Democracy against the 
foreign Federal standard of church and state. I oc- 
cupied it for a course of evenings, during a universal 
excitement far greater than any we have witnessed 
during the past weeks. All inquiry was then a novel- 
ty, and the people awoke at the appeal so suddenly 
made to their reason and patriotism, as from a profound 
sleep. The first and instantaneous consequence of 
that awakening was the famous meeting held in this 
city against the Sabbath mail petitions, which were 
then outraging the ear of Congress ; a meeting that 
was echoed back by the Report of the Committee of the 
United States Senate. The mass of all parties and all 
sects then rallied thro'out the nation. The millions 
were, as always, on the side of Truth and Liberty ; 
the thousands on that of bigotry and slavery. 

But the thousands, here as elsewhere, ana then as 
now, owned all the buildings suitable for public purpo- 
ses : and I was prevented from the further renting of 
this Hall thro' the direct and openly exerted influence 
of the whole combined clergy, together with the direc- 
tors and leading members of the Bible, Tract, and 
home and foreign missionary societies. 

At that time — when every large building was held 

under the control of the Federal, Church and StaU 

Party — Mr. Simpson, the public spirited lessee of th# 

l* 



WHAT IS THE MATTER 1 

Park Theatre, without any direct or indirect applica- 
tion of mine, addressed to me a note, tendering me the 
use of that House. The circumstances under which 
he made, and I accepted, that offer were far otherwise 
appalling than any which the ruffian gang of the 
Courier and Enquirer can now create in this city. 
Thro'out the day of the evening on which I met the 
public in the Park Theatre, the walls of the city were 
covered with placards, foretelling and provoking riot, 
fire and bloodshed. The Federal Church and State 
press gave forth the same cry, and not one single paper 
then existed in this leading city and state of the Union, 
with the courage to answer it, nor even with the inde- 
pendence to allow me to address one word to the public 
thro' its columns. A thrill of awe and panic seemed 
to run thro' the veins of the population. While the 
violence, the persecution, the endless intrigues, the 
hunting from house to house, the personal intimidations, 
the threats to my life — made by ruffians forcibly enter- 
ing my private study, were far beyond all that could 
mow be dared, even in those head quarters of British 
Power — the Federal Bank ruled city of Philadelphia. 
Still I relied then, as I rely now ; and as I shall ever 
rely, on the instinctive right feeling of the American 
people. I knew they would prove true to the most 
sacred of their own liberties — that of free speech, and 
free audience. They gave reason to my confidence ; 
and when I entered alone upon the stage of the Park 
Theatre, my eyes fell upon a compact audience — firm, 
silent and collected. To that audience, under the cir- 
cumstances described, I spoke, and from that ti me forward 
occupied the public Theatres here as elsewhere, when- 
ever I wished to address the people effectively, until the 



WHAT IS THE MATTER i 7 

same Federal influences, under the standard of Bank 
and State, seized openly or secretly upon them also. 

Two seasons ago at the same period of the elections, 
when the whole nation was agitated by the nomination 
of a Chief Magistrate ; and at an epoch when that 
nomination was felt to involve every great question of 
state policy, that has ever held divided the mind of the 
nation, the use of this Hall was offered to, and pro- 
cured for me by a gentleman — formerly an alderman 
of this city, and now a resident in the western part of 
Jiis state — who had been mainly influential in the first 
Duilding of it. He procured it for me also in the week 
preceding that of the elections, and even effected the 
postponement of some meeting, or other business of 
he Whig Party, in order that I might occupy it before 
* left the city for Boston. Certainly what I then said 
aras to the same purport with all that I say now. It 
might too have been supposed much more annoying to 
the ostensible Whig Party ; since my views were known 
to be on all great principles, and leading measures, 
(and I never trouble myself with any others,) confor- 
mable to those of the Jackson Administration, and con- 
sequently calculated — so far as they could be supposed 
to exert any such influence at all, to favor the nomina- 
tion of the existing Chief Magistrate. Last year 
again — having twice incidentally, and I may say, as it 
were accidentally (for, it has so happened, that I have 
never at any time hired for my own use, and in my 
own name, those Head Quarters of the Democratic 
Party) — having twice spoken in Tammany, on nights 
when it was in the hands of a private society, I rented 
this Hall, without any, the smallest opposition for six 
successive Sunday evenings ; and delivered six dis- 



I 
8 WHAT IS THE MATTER? 

courses upon subjects quite, if not more obnoxious to 
party feeling than those which I have delivered at the 
present time. 

It will be evident to all from this plain statement, 
that my application for, and occupancy of these Head 
(Quarters of the Whig Party has been, on my part, a 
most innocent cause of offense. I came here because 
it has been in fact the only Hall which I have ever 
hired in the city ; and because, also, it was the only 
building, of at all suitable size, then known to me, that 
I felt myself at liberty to hire. In Tammany, to the 
best of my recollection, I never spoke but four or five 
times in my life. Twice — now ten years ago — for the 
benefit of an aged man cruelly persecuted for opinion 
sake — Abner Kneeland ; and twice or thrice last year 
when as I have stated, it was held by a private asso- 
ciation. 

The renting of that Hall was, it is true, offered to 
me by that same association on my arrival this season 
in the city, but was declined by me for this simple rea- 
son. To wit : that I have ever held it for a rule, not 
only to keep aloof from all sects and parties, but also, 
as far as in me lies, to avoid lending to rumor or to 
political intrigue, even the shadow of a pretext for as- 
sociating my name with any of them. I was unwilling 
to address the public at large on Sunday nights in Tam- 
many, while that Hall is known to be in the hands of a 
sect with whom the standing subject of disputation is 
the christian Theology; and because while standing 
aloof myself from all sects — anti-christian as christian, 
christian as Jew, and Jew as Mahomedan — I propose, 
as I have ever proposed, for my single object the gath- 
ering of all sects into the great family of one common 



WHAT IS THE MATTER? 9 

humanity, and all parties into the fold of a common 
country. Here then is the single motive which decided 
me, this year as it did the last, not to hire the use of 
Tammany from its present occupants on the Sunday 
nights ; and here also are the simple causes which, 
when I saw an objection to the hiring of Tammany, led 
me — both in the natural order of things no less than as 
a matter of necessity — to hire the Masonic. Had I 
known at the time of any other procureable building, 
at once as large and as conveniently placed, and also 
better aired, better seated, and better constructed, 1 
should most certainly have preferred it. All who may 
ever have had occasion to exert their voice within these 
walls, for any length of time, will know that it is not 
done without difficulty, nor without pain, and will feel 
with me, that some other and more suitable place of 
meeting for the purposes of public instruction is much 
wanting. 

And now here, in all simplicity, is the plain history 
of my occupancy of this Hall. And surely it will be 
distinguished that if any high influences in the Whig 
Party, apprehend such especial injury to the Whig 
cause from my expounding American principles, and 
the high requisitions of patriotism within the walls of 
a building occasionally employed as the Whig Head 
Quarters, those same influences should see that they 
have been guilty of a long course of remissness in not 
securing to themselves its sole use ad occupancy. 
They having failed to do this, and this Hall having 
been rented by me in the simple and strait forward 
manner I have related, surely it will be farther distin- 
guished, that if any individual ever had cause to be 
astonished at interruption and outrage, in this place, no 



10 WHAT IS THE MATTER? 

less than in this city, and at this period of time, it is 
myself. 

I own too that I have been, and yet am, utterly at a 
loss to comprehend the peculiar umbrage taken by — I 
know not how large — but, it would certainly seem, 
some very potent portion of the more available forces 
of the Whig Party, at the particular fact of my address- 
ing the Public in this particular Hall. I have, indeed, 
been seriously assured, and by some who ought to 
speak with knowledge, that the cause of this extra- 
ordinary umbrage lay in some jokes passed by the New 
Era ; and purporting that my labors in this place were 
conducted both for the especial advantage and under 
the especial protection of the Whig Party — anxious, at 
this time when a cloud was passing over its fortunes to 
endoctrine itself from my lips with the principles of 
ascendant Democracy. It may be that some of these 
jokes were provoking ; but what then ? It is neither 
my fault nor my merit should one of our Democratic 
Journals be given to be witty, and somewhat saucy and 
stinging in its wit. And surely it should be for me rather, 
if for any, to complain of the free use made of my name 
in conjunction, not with one, but, time about with every 
sect and party in the nation, as at theextreme terrorwith 
which almost every sect and party disclaim my fellow- 
ship and hurl me back at the head of their opponents. I 
could assure my Whig foes— since foes they insist upon 
being — that they are not one-half— nay ! not one-tenth 
part as afraid of hearing my name pronounced in the 
same breath with their own, as are many of the, so-call- 
ed, Democratic Republicans of Tammany. If any of the 
more sensitive of the Whig Party desire revenge upon 
their political adversaries, they have but to pay back 



WHAT IS THE MATTER ? 11 

upon them the joke in kind. Let them call by the name 
of Fanny Wright-men those truth-speaking men of 
Tammany who, the other day, threw out the name of 
an honest man and stern patriot under the pretext of 
abolitionism, when they were only thinking of his too 
uncompromising democracy. Let my worst foes thus 
return the joke in kind. They will discomfit their 
adversaries far more than if they should finally suc- 
ceed in breaking my head : an operation indeed which 
would probably not discomfit them at all, and which it 
will be seen, could only rid them of jokes quite as an- 
noying and infinitely more embarrassing than any 
which may have been thrown upon the opposition. 
The truth of this is all but self-evident. No one is 
very likely to mistake me for a whig, nor a whig for a 
Fanny Wright man. But these same Jefferson-quoting 
men of Tammany — the one-half of them, it may be, 
with equal rights in their mouths, and nothing but 
well-paid office in their thoughts — ah ! when the whigs 
throw me at their heads, the hit is palpable, and the 
smart — just such as malice could desire. 

And now is it not for me to ask — What is all this 
pother about ? I get up to say a word to the people, 
and the whole people, without cutting them up into 
christians or anti-christians, Whig men or Tammany 
men, and both set upon me — I speak the honest truth — 
each after their own fashion. "Hush ! hush !" whisper 
the Tammany men, "You are going to spoil our elec- 
tions." " Hold your tongue !" cry the Whigs, and try 
to knock me down. Truly, this is a very singular 
world, and this is a very marvellous country ! 

Here is a great city, the first in this Union, not mere- 
ly as to the matter of size, but on the score of intelli- 



12 WHAT IS THE MATTER? 

gence, energy, enterprise, public spirit, ardent patriot- 
ism, and fearless and daring inquiry. And this great 
city — all at once, and as without a sign given — has 
been turned upon its head. The noisy Whig press has 
proclaimed riot and commotion as the order of the day. 
The main street of this vast city has been blocked up 
by wondering thousands. The people have assembled 
to guard the peace ; the civil force to guard the people ; 
the idle to stare ; the noisy to clatter ; strangers to won- 
der ; and every man of common sense to ask if the 
population had gone distracted. 

But — what is the matter? Are the British Tory 
Whigs upon us from Canada ? No. The noise has 
been so loud that their commander-in-chief, little Vic- 
toria's Lord High Commissioner, has taken fright, and 
embarks with his whole retinue for Europe. What, 
then, can be the matter ? My good friends, I will tell 
you. This is the matter. The Federal Tory Whigs 
are scattered at home ; and our American Whigs — just 
opening their eyes to the light — are discovering that 
their old Federal allies, for some past years, have been 
making fools of them. 

This is what is the matter. But, to cover up the case 
a little longer, to shuffle the real condition of things out 
of sight, and to set the public, more especially the 
American whi g part of it, on a wrong scent — at least 
till after the elections— the Federal Tory Whigs shout 
" Fanny Wright !" and set Webb's gang upon her in 
the midst of the people— just, for all the world, as if 
they had started the hare— here— in this hall ; when, 
every body knows, the true hare was started by the 
people two months ago on the west flank of the Missis- 
sippi, and there sent off at a bound to far distant Maine; 



WHAT IS THE MATTER? 13 

and, from thence that it has been flying west, east, north 
and south ever since, until now it is ready to spring 
into safe cover within the warm bosom of the Empire 
State. 

This is what is the matter, my friends; and I am 
only helping, as my custom is, to turn the matter to 
some good and lasting account, by showing, alike to 
the victors and the vanquished, how we may all profit 
by past errors, and turn the hard lessons of experience 
to future good. Most true it is, that because I have 
undertaken this work of the good Samaritan — because 
I have applied myself to binding up the wounds of all 
the well-intentioned of the beaten party, and to show- 
ing that the interest of every honest American citizen 
is at this hour but one and the same — most true it is 
that onr old incurable Federal Tory Whigs have, in 
their desperation, when driven again and again from 
the election field, made of my person a last battle 
ground ; and that, what with Federal Tory "Whigs 
pulling at it, and the people protecting it, it is honestly 
a marvel to myself that any thing is left. 

But now I cannot very well make out in what this 
tormenting of me is to help the already shipwrecked 
fortunes of the Federal Tory Whigs. (T shall presently 
draw clearly the distinction between them and the 
American Whigs, whom I hold very generally to be 
a good sort of people ; to be no more bent upon strang- 
ling me than they are upon destroying their country; 
and perhaps, moreover, to be, at bottom, quite as honest 
democrats and republicans as many who wear the title, 
and fight, under its cover, for place and profit, while 
they — the American Whigs — now standing in the mi- 
nority, are cast into the shade.) 



14 WHAT IS THE MATTER? 

But, as I observed, I cannot see what the Federal 
Tory Whigs — whose peculiar character, interests, and 
objects I shall presently define — I cannot see what they, 
at this time, are to gain by the hue and cry they have 
raised in this city. Say that they should succeed in 
tearing me to peices, or stoning me to death, as they 
have at different times attempted — what then ? Admit- 
ting that my life and labor should advantage somewhat 
the cause of the people and the interests of Humani- 
ty at large, still were both now stopped on the instant 
and forever, that would not prevent the passing of the 
Independent Treasury bill ; and the passing of that 
one bill knocks Federal Tory Whiggery on the head, 
and gives it its quietus forever. This is true — true as 
any problem in the mathematics. But, true as it is, our 
American Whigs do not perhaps see how to write be* 
neath it Q,. E. D. 

What is the first great national effect of the Indepen- 
dent Treasury bill ? I beg you to observe, my friends, 
that I do not call this vital measure by the name of the 
Sub-Treasury bill ; still less by that of the Sub-Treasury 
scheme. There is no scheme in the case. A scheme 
signifies something contrived ; something artificial ; 
something got up with ingenuity for purposes difficult 
to compass. Nothing of all this is in the measure pro- 
posed. The scheme was in the absence of an Inde- 
pendent Treasury. The scheme was in the substitute 
contrived for it. The scheme was in a national debt, 
and in the banking and funding bubble, associated 
with and based upon the national revenues. The 
icheme was in the conjurer's trick of a United States 
Bank, with a secret door leading into the Bank of Eng- 
land. The scheme was in the high tariff, commercial 



WHAT IS THE MATTER? 15 

credit, and paper money machinery. Ay! all this was 
the scheme, my friends; and, in very truth, it was a 
scheme with a vengeance! 

Do you not see how the scheme worked, fellow- 
citizens? Why, it worked so as to make the people pay 
high taxes, and to pay them in the worst form of all — 
that of indirect taxes. It worked so as to throw into 
the American Branch Bank of England, (called the 
Bank of the United States,) a surplus revenue for the 
use of the mother bank in London. It worked so as 
to make the gold and silver of that surplus revenue 
serve the double, but most unequal, purpose of supply- 
ing what is called the specie basis of a paper currency 
for the United States, and of enabling the Bank of Eng- 
land to supply a specie currency to Great Britain. It 
worked so as to swindle our South of its cotton, our 
North of its labor, this whole nation of its lands and 
its treasure. It worked so as to render the State Banks 
the slaves of the United States Bank, the whole people 
the slaves of all the banks, the whole banking system 
the tool of Great Britain, the great American Republic 
the prey of the Holy Alliance. Ay ! all this was the 
scheme ; and such was the working of the scheme, to 
the prostration of people, country, national honor, 
wealth, greatness, human liberty, and for the consolida- 
tion of the whole land, capital, and labor of this last 
refuge of freedom, in the hands of the crowned despo- 
tisms of Europe. 

But the Independent Treasury bill, fellow-citizens! 
is the reverse of all this. It is not a scheme. It is more 
even than a measure. It is a principle. It is the na- 
tional independence realized. It is the effective, defini- 
tive annulment of this country's vassalage. It is the 



16 WHAT IS THE MATTER? 

first practical, efficient, decisive realization of the De- 
claration of 76. It is the day-star of constitutional 
liberty rising upon the earth, with the first cleansing of 
a national government from the pollutions of financial 
scheming. It is the first emancipation of a government 
at once from the odious enthralment, and from the cor- 
rupting influences and overwhelming tyranny of the 
money power. The money power ! — that worst — that 
most deceptive, most corrosive power ever exercised 
upon earth, and which has been ever until this hour 
allied- -openly or secretly — with administrational au- 
thority and executive command. 

No, fellow-citizens ! I do not call the great decree of 
the independence of the treasury of the United States 
by the name of a scheme ; nor do I either call it by the 
paltry name of the Sub-Treasury Bill. 

Observe ! The name of " Sub-Treasury Bill" is a 
name descriptive only of the mode in which it is judg- 
ed that a sacred principle may be the most effectually 
secured, and that a vital measure may be brought to 
bear. The name of " Independent Treasury Bill" is 
directly descriptive of the principle itself, and thus con- 
secrates the proposed statute by its very title. 

And, say ! is there — can there be an American citi- 
zen not interested in the independence of his country's 
treasury, when that in fact is the independence of his: 
country itself? Is there — can there be — an American 
citizen who conceives of any advantage to himself as 
likely to accrue from the young proud eagle of this re- 
public remaining any longer clutched within the claws 
of the treacherous leopard of England? Ay! the 
leopard. That ancient, true, and faithfully descriptive 
emblem of English monarchy! Let the British gov- 



WHAT IS THE MATTER? 17 

ernment keep to that old emblem. It has nothing of 
the lion in its nature. 

But now I have a word to say to that very large and 
far more honest division of the whig party, which I am 
wont to distinguish by the name of American whigs, 
in contradistinction to old British Federal Tory Whigs. 

The American division of what has gone by the 
name of the whig party are not federalists, are not 
traitors, are not, and have not been the knowing and 
willing tools of a foreign Power, and that foreign 
Power the most cruel national enemy which this coun- 
try ever has or ever will know — if indeed it ever has 
known or ever will know any other. 

The thorough-going old British Tory, Federal Whigs 
are incurable. They, and their fathers before them, 
were conceived in treason, bred up in treason, live by 
treason, hope in treason, and will die in treason — un- 
less indeed they should now do what their fathers 
ought to have done sixty-two years ago — unless they 
now make up their portmanteaux, dispose to the best 
they can of their property, and clear out of the United 
States in the next British steam packet. This is now 
definitively the only course for the old thorough-bred 
British Tory Federal Whigs to pursue, either for their 
own salvation, or for the peace and honor of the Re- 
public. 

But, as for all our American whigs, they are quite 
in a different category. They are not traitors to their 
country. They are not enemies to its peace and great- 
ness. They have not staked their gain upon its loss ; 
nor — for they are, after all, quite a shrewd set of men — 
are they by any means disposed to jeopard their own 
fortunes and political existence in furtherance of the 

2* 



18 WHAT IS THE MATTER? 

schemes of a faction with which, in reality, they have 
at the bottom, nothing in common. Our American 
whigs have been mistaken ; that is the amount of their 
offence. And pray which of us is not exposed to er- 
ror ? And pray where are those intuitively infallible 
sages who have not, at some time, or in some way or 
another, taken a false view of things, or been deceived 
by some Belial, speaking with the voice of an angel of 
light? Oh Federalism ! thou, to this hour, hast been 
that Belial to thousands upon thousands of America's 
children. Oh accursed offspring of an accursed parent ! 
The spots on thy skin are those of the English Leop- 
ard. Thine is that Leopard's nature. Thine is his 
deceptive whining. Thine is his foetid breath of pol- 
lution. Thine are his crouching, watching, stealthy,, 
murder-designing wiles and lures. Thine is his tiger 
spring. Thine are his fangs all whetted for destruc- 
tion. Oh Federalism ! true child of British monarchy ! 
Sixty-two years have the bright waters of democracy, 
and the onward-bearing flood of Revolution swept past 
thee and washed over thee. Still art thou what thou 
wert ; — a viper in the cradle of the infant Hercules. 

But lo ! at last the reptile is detected. The child* 
with the strength of manhood and the wisdom of age, 
hath lured it forth from its hiding place, and throttled 
it in the eye of day. The Independent Treasury Bill 
hath done this my friends. The Independent Treasu- 
ry Bill hath slain the viper. And — look ! — hark ! Hath 
it not startled — hath it not frighted the Leopard? 
Hear we not his smothered growl of disappointed rage 7 
Turns he not from Canada ? Trembles he not before 
that deep hush which foretells the tempest ? 

"What ! and when the enemy sees to read the sign — . 



WHAT IS THE MATTER? 19 

the sign of his doom and of the whole earth's salva- 
tion — when he by his terrors renders homage to the 
wise hunter who slays him — shall any of those who 
are saved from his fangs fail to recognize their escape, 
and shout hosannas for the rescue ? No, not one. 
Fellow citizens ! not one. Every child of freedom 
shall arouse this day. Every prodigal son — every back- 
slider from republican truth shall return to the home 
he had forsaken. The fatted calf shall be killed and 
all shall partake of it. Every son of America, who 
stands by the stripes and the stars instead of by the 
blood-stained cross of England — every sovereign citi- 
Een of this now secure Republic shall swell the note of 
triumph. Yes ! all — all who call this land of promise 
their country — nay all, throughout the world, who have 
ever looked to it with hope, who love and who yearn 
for the happiness of man, and who have faith in his 
destinies, shall raise one united voice of exulting thanks- 
giving for the issue of those elections which have al- 
ready spoken, and which have yet still more forcibly 
to speak, the independence of the Treasury of the 
United States. 

Let all then in this hour depose the animosities, the 
jealousies, the suspicions of party. Let all at this hour 
— upon this question — be a united nation. Let traitor 
Federalism read in silence its final doom. Let the 
hopes of British Toryism expire in the Canadas. Let 
the names of Whig, Conservative, Tammany, Equal 
rights men, divide us no longer upon a measure on 
which the voice of a sovereign and national majority 
is already known. Now is the time for all to rally 
round the altar of country, and to present a united front 
to an awe-struck world. Now is the time for the 



20 WHAT IS THE MATTER? 

whole political sovereignty of the Republic to bury 
the hatchet ; to take hands at home as a nation of 
brothers ; to read to home traitors their lesson ; to make 
fair treaties, and to set accompts strait, with foreign foes. 

What is the matter ? was the question asked. Fel- 
low citizens ! I have answered it. It is the Independ- 
ent Treasury Bill that is the matter. It is the safe 
snatching of America's young eagle from the greedy 
clutch of the English leopard. It is this that is the 
matter. It is the fast sealing of that golden charter of 
the rights of man and the independence of the new 
world to which Federalism had given the lie, and 
which British fraud had thought to compass and to 
break. It is this — this only which is the matter. It is 
the bowels of Federalism that are racked with anguish, 
and her own mother on the banks of the Thames whose 
empire feels the throes of dissolution. 

Rejoice then — rejoice in thy deliverance, young 
eagle ! Rejoice in the advent of thy strength and ap- 
proaching fulness of dominion ! And now spread thy 
wings, imperial bird of the new world ! Full fledged 
art thou at this day. Thy pinion is strong and thou 
canst cope alone with thy foes. The lightenings of 
Liberty are in thine eyes. The thunderbolts of her 
wrath are in thy talons. Thou art ready, and willing, 
and able to achieve thy last victory. The last chord 
is broken which bound thy youth in vassalage. Thou 
art thy own. Henceforth and for ever thou art thy 
own. Soar then aloft on the strong pinion which Free- 
dom srave thee. Scatter to the four winds the foul and 
foreign harpies who battened on the blood and the 
sweat of thy children. Establish thine empire in peace 
and in power throughout the vast world which nature 



WHAT IS THE MATTER? 21 

hath disposed for thee. Try thy strength, bird of ma- 
jesty ! One bold defiance — perchance one fierce en- 
counter, and the Leopard of England shall spring back 
to his jungle, all the tiger monarchs of the earth shall 
crouch in their littleness before thee, and all her peo- 
ples shall rise up and bless thee in the name of Free- 
dom. 

I have now filled the term of my engagement with 
the lessee of this hall ; and I now feel at liberty, fellow 
citizens, to appoint you a rendezvous in a more peace- 
able, safe and civilized place than we have found to 
be the New- York Whig Head (Quarters. On Sunday 
evening next I will meet you in Concert Hall, a com- 
modious place of meeting, in a neutral and friendly 
house. There I hope to give no especial offense ei:her 
to Whigs or Tammanies, and there, on the evening pre- 
ceding the casting of your votes as citizens for the in- 
dependence of the Treasury of your country, I propose 
to take for my subject The duties of the people 

BOTH BEFORE AND AFTER THE ELECTIONS. 



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